The present invention relates to mechanisms for piecing, spinning on, start spinning and cleaning apparatuses for use in conjunction with machines for spinning staple fiber bundles or slivers into a spun yarn and, more particularly, to a single mechanism for sequentially carrying out all such operations.
DE-PS 33 36 294 describes an automatic piecing apparatus which patrols in front of a row of spinning units of a spinning machine and has a manipulator, which, with a program controlled movement of a suction pipe, catches a thread to be joined and subsequently introduces the thread to the piecing operation.
In EP-A 259 622 there is described a programmable robot which travels at periodic intervals from spinning unit to spinning unit and sucks off fiber residues from critical points of the spinning machine with a suction pipe discharge during the operation of the spinning units. This device has the disadvantage that the cleaning effectiveness is insufficient at some points and is very expensive to manufacture.